So It Shows
by crazyidea-inc
Summary: Pepper returns his call. Short, sweet, and fluffy, but not without some obligatory Stark snark. Little bit of language. R


i love them. and i want to be pepper potts when i grow up :) written to "flume" by bon iver, a song that eases words out of you if you let it.

XXX

She holds the phone with one white-knuckled hand and waits, breathing like she's scared of how loud it is in the empty hotel room. She hears a click and sits down on the bed.

"Hey." His voice is scratchy. She must've woken him up.

"Hi."

She's not sure what to say now, which is weird, because she's been rehearsing this for several hours now and _dammit_, she does not want to cry.

"…"

_"I caught your near-death on the six o'clock news." No. "I've had three panic attacks in the last three hours." Not that either. "Don't you ever do anything like that ever again or I'll fucking kill you." Honest. But again, no._

"…"

"Pepper – "

"Um. You, um, you called me." She bites down on her lip, hard, but her vision blurs anyway.

"When? Are you okay? You sound weird." She takes a breath.

"During New York. You called me."

"Oh." For all that he's a genius, he's kind of an idiot. "_Oh_." She nods, phone pressed to her cheek, then remembers he can't see her. She opens her mouth to respond, but her throat doesn't seem to be working. Actually, nothing's really working right now, including her brain. Dammit. No. Stop.

"…"

"…yeah. Um."

"…"

"Talk, Pepper."

"Well, I'm returning it," she blurts out. "Your call."

"…okay?"

She knows he's waiting for a response and she's keeping him up and he's got to be exhausted after, oh, God, oh _God_, saving the world but for one sickening moment the fear comes back, dizzying and hot-cold all over, and so she pushes her knuckles against her mouth, terrified that whatever's been coiled tight inside her will explode. Her eyelashes are wet.

"…"

"…"

"…" She tries to take a breath, but it kind of catches halfway.

"Pepper." He's awake now. "Hey. Don't cry."

"I was scared, I was so scared, Tony – " she whispers, because she sounds so stupid when she tries to talk and cry at the same time.

"Pepper – Pepper, it's fine – "

" – and I love you, I didn't get to tell you, but I love you." She inhales a shuddery gasp of oxygen, because this physically hurts.

"I love you, too," he says, very quietly. And she wants him. So badly.

"I love you," she says again, so she's sure he knows, he's got to know, he has to have known from the minute he got off the plane from Afghanistan. And then a sob sneaks out. And another, stifled, but it's there. She lies down, curling her knees to her chest, uncomfortable dressy skirt and all.

"Pepper." She thinks she's worrying him a little bit, but she really can't stop now. Her diaphragm is _literally_ _spasming_, and she can't stop. "Pepper, it's okay, I'm fine."

"I missed your call." She squeezes her eyes shut at the awfulness of it all, but typical Tony, he just bats it away.

"But you returned it. Like the classy, _sassy_ business woman you are." He's smiling, wanting her to do the same, but she can't.

"Tony..."

"Pepper." She sniffs and hates herself. "Pepper. Hey. When's your plane coming in?" he asks. She makes a noise that sounds not unlike a dying goose.

"…oh, God. Sorry. Like, nineish." She honks again. Diaphragm. Ag. "Sorry, I'm kind of…"

"All right. Nineish. And then you will come back to my place and we will make hot, sweet love on every available surface and we will have JARVIS tape it and send it to Nick Fury. How does that sound?"

She can't help it; she laughs.

"_Tony_."

She can hear him grinning that shit-eating grin.

"Better."

"…"

"…"

She closes her eyes. She's missed him. A lot.

"..."

"..."

"One of us has to hang up," she says, more to remind herself than anything. Somehow she can't quite hit the end call button.

"Yeah." She waits, but he's still there on the other end, half-asleep probably.

"I'm not hanging up," she warns him.

"Well, I'm not either," he informs her. "Congratulations, Ms. Potts. We're officially fifteen-year-olds."

"It's a step up for you – most of the time you're a two-year-old."

"No, you hang up," he coos. Her lips twitch.

"And what about that twelve percent?"

"Pepper!" he cries, scandalized. "You _wound_ me."

She loves him. So she tells him, over and over, until her breathing evens out, until she closes her eyes and listens to him reply sleepily, over and over, "I love you, too, I love you, too, I love you, too."

Though she thinks he slips in something about Fury and a sex tape.


End file.
